Monthly Archives: December 2011

I just threw my underwear into the toilet. I walked into the bathroom to take a shower (stop visualizing!), took off my underwear, lifted the lid of the toilet and threw them in. Now, I’m sitting here comforting myself with this mantra, “the laundry basket has a lid. The laundry basket has a lid. The laundry basket has a lid.” Because, well, the laundry basket does indeed have a lid, and a very distracted person (me) could easily confuse (although they are in different rooms) the toilet for the laundry basket. Because they both have lids.

Oh dear Jesus.

I’m a little distracted.

When I was a kid, I wanted a few things that were not to be. One, I wanted to be named Heather. Heather Miller, actually. Not because I knew a Heather Miller and envied her life or anything, simply because I liked the name Heather Miller, and felt it was a perfectly good name for a teacher. Which leads us to the second thing I wanted, which was to be a teacher. A teacher named Heather Miller. This seemed perfectly reasonable, and therefore I believed I could will it into being so. The third thing I wanted desperately (besides wanting to meet Michael Jackson and make him love me forever) was super-curly hair. I tried this on and off with various perms, but I never actually achieved it. I wanted natural, uncontrollably curly hair. In a bob. And to tell you the truth, I wanted this particular thing for a long, long time. In fact, if you could magically make my hair into a uncontrollably curly bob right now? I would totally take it.

Are you asking yourself what the hell this has to do with my underwear landing in the toilet? Patience, people. Patience.

Now that I’m all grown up (well, physically at least) I want things like, money so I can fix the broken window on my car . . . or rock-hard abdominals without having to actually do anything. I would also like a jet pack, but that seems reasonable. I would like at least two more hours in the day, a babysitter that doesn’t spend 80 percent of the time that she’s in my house texting, perfect posture, a luscious garden of endless sugar snap peas in my back yard, a massage therapist that comes daily to my home (which has magically grown another room, just for me) to work on me, and slightly longer legs—mostly so I wouldn’t have to lose weight, because the weight would then be more evenly distributed. While I’m at it, I would love to be able to have my thoughts translated into text and shot out of my brain and onto my computer. I suppose that I just have to wait a few more years and that may actually happen.

And then we have one of the things I’ve wanted the most over the last couple of years, since becoming a mother. Well, I wanted to not have to utter the phrase, “Luca! Don’t lick my eye!” but, that was not to be. Because he totally licked my eye. What I wanted more was to have my own creative life. At a certain point when you have small children, you look around at your life, to take stock, and realize that you have nothing that matters to or inspires you, besides your family. Of course, family matters and is deeply important, but for most mothers that I know, we long for something more. Something that identifies us as women, as independent individuals in the world, for at least 5 minutes a day. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but it is. And the longer you go without any sense of self, the more resentful you become. Or, to be more accurate, the more resentful I became. And then, of course, we slide into the terrible cycle of guilt for wanting more, and for not being satisfied by our children and partners. And then we long for more, and then guilt, and then more, and then guilt. It’s a horrible cycle of self loathing!

Recently, I had a moment of complete clarity. In it, I realized that I have been writing this blog for a year and a half. I’m a writer. I actually have time to do this! And my jewelry, too. I have been able to be visually creative and earn a little money doing it. It stunned me. When I was in the thick of it—the parenthood trenches—I never thought I would manage to make it here, to this point. I sit and write uninterrupted for an hour, because the boys are playing quietly with each other in the other room. Gone are the days of a sentence here, another sentence an hour later, two more the next day, making it take an entire week to write a post. That’s how I started, and I’m sort of shocked I didn’t throw my computer (or my children) off the roof.

And then, recently, just to make me feel both super lucky and as if a large piano may fall on my head at any moment, I got a job. You may want some back story if you are new to me, so check this shit out. Here’s where it get’s freaky. Two months ago, I said to my husband, “if only I could find a job in my industry that I could do from home for, like, 10 hours a week. But nothing like that exists! What am I going to do?” He shrugged his shoulders in compassionate commiseration, and we both just mulled over my predicament. Then, I get a message from someone who wants to talk to me about a job. For ten hours a week. From home. In my industry.

No shit.

That was a month ago, and I am now employed as a title-yet-to-be-determined with an amazing start-up business. More on that when the time comes, but for now, let’s just ponder the magical powers of the universe, shall we? Seriously, people! Ponder it! Ponder it! Ponder the magical fucking powers!

And so, I threw my underwear in the toilet because my life is so full! It’s so full that my brain is full! And my brain is full of things that interest me! And things that inspire me! And, clearly, things that distract me. But that’s alright with me, because I’m happy, and I’m motivated, and I’m lucky. I just feel so very lucky.

Like this:

I love peas. I love them so much. Now, let’s be clear: I love sugar snap peas. Not that cooked crap. If this comes as a surprise to any of you, you need to look the fuck up at the name of my blog. I bet you all think to yourselves, “what’s up with the pea thing?” Am I right? I’m going to pretend I’m right. You can thank me later.

I’m not sure when it began. One day it just occurred to me that I love peas. Actually, that isn’t right. One day I realized that I needed peas. It was an overwhelming need for peas. For me, the things I love are bigger than the thing and more about the ritual and perfection that I’ve achieved with the thing. A perfect example of this would be coffee. I love coffee as much as I love peas, and you may ask yourself, well, why isn’t the name of all of her activities related to her love of coffee? It’s because everybody loves coffee. If you don’t, you’re probably a sad, lonely creature with no joy in your life. My love of coffee goes way beyond the coffee. It’s the mug, the sugar, the heat, the smell, the ritual, the sound of percolation, and the fact that I make really good freaking coffee.

I used to be a smoker, and the same rule applied to that habit. You don’t just smoke, you get your brand, tap the box, pop it out in a fancy and annoying fashion, light it, inhale . . . you get the picture. Even the way you tap the ash off of your cigarette holds pleasure! And you get attached to the habit in relation to your other habits, like having an after-dinner cigarette . . . or a talking-on-the-phone-to-an-old-friend cigarette. And the lung cancer! It’s awesome!

It’s totally unfair of me to compare the habit of smoking to my love of peas. It almost does peas an injustice, but since peas aren’t actually going to be upset at me for using that comparison, I’m keeping it. I love the whole process involved in my pea habit. For me, it’s like all of my other habits in the sense that I have my own unique way of doing it. Many, many people give me a hard time for always shelling my peas and tossing the pods, but I don’t give a shit. I love me some peas, I don’t love me some pods.

Plus, shelling is part of the love of the habit for me. In fact, I can shell so fast, it’s almost a skill. Seriously. I have mad shelling skills.

I love the search for peas, although, living in the desert, it can be tough. The season is short, and I usually find myself disappointed for 7 months out of the year. I used to go to the same grocery store here every season where the produce guy would see me coming, walk right into the back, grab the refill box of peas and bring it out to me. He used to call me the “pea lady,” which I liked at the time—it made me feel all special—but in retrospect, I have a feeling he thought of me a little like the log lady from Twin Peaks.

That’s cool, though. As long as I get my peas, man. When they are in season, I eat about 2 pounds a day. Really.

No, really.

I’m serious.

I’ve successfully trained my boys to love peas too. If I’m going to keep it real, I should admit that I both love and despise that my boys eat peas with me, mostly because I am a terrible, terrible sharer. That is not my skill. I find myself rushing to pick out the biggest and eat them without them seeing me, because they too love the big peas. It’s charming. In order to counteract that, I have begun buying twice as many peas so I don’t end up resenting my children.

One day I was working at Bookman’s, answering phones in the super-cool glass box above the store, and slowly working on my daily bag of peas because I was pretty bored, and, like most humans, I eat when I’m bored. Without really meaning to, I ate the entire bag. That’s 3 or 4 pounds of peas, people! And let me tell you . . . I hit my limit. I was so sick, I had to leave work early. It’s the only time in my life that peas betrayed me.

But it didn’t hurt our relationship.

And then, a couple of years ago, the heavens opened up and shined a light down upon the produce section of Trader Joe’s. I’m pretty sure that on the eighth day, after God took a nap, he created Trader Joe’s. (By the way, as a side note, I know nothing about God. When I asked John how many days it supposedly took to “create the universe” he replied, “Seven. Well, actually six, because on the seventh day he rested. He was all, ‘whew!’”)

They have peas! In the pod! Good ones! Like, all year! And it’s amazing! It’s so nice that I can pretty much count on it!

And, not for nothing, they have really good cheap, sweet wine. In fact, they have all sorts of cheap booze. Cheap booze, people! And peas! Oh my god, and the most delicious maple leaf cookies that have ever graced my lips. Just sayin’.

So now I can have my peas almost every day . And my life is fuller because of it.